In the wake of the Baltimore riots, Al Sharpton is calling for the federal takeover of local police. Like most ideas from the loathsome Rev. Sharpton, this is a lousy one. But since federalizing local police is actually an Obama administration idea, it's worth paying a bit more attention.
The idea behind federal supervision of local police forces is that it will make them more accountable. Instead of a bunch of presumptively racist, violent hicks running things on a local level, we'll see the cool professionalism of the national government in charge.
There are (at least) two problems with this approach. The first is that federal law enforcement, especially in recent years, hasn't exactly been a haven of cool professionalism. The second is that no law enforcement agency is very good at policing itself, meaning that a national police force is likely to be less accountable, not more. And there's a third problem, too, but we'll get to that in a minute.
#1
Federalizing the police force? If Sharpton is for it, I'm against it. It's a bad idea. What wrong with a decentralized police force answerable to the local citizens (taxpayers). Screw the idea of federalizing the police force. I haven't seen anything federalized that works.
#3
Do you want the police to be even more unaccountable? Federalize it. At least now they are accountable at the local level. Federalize them and there will be no accountability.
#4
In most states, you can refer problems with the city police to the local sheriff and/or the state police. Once the police get federalized, there's no one to appeal to.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
05/04/2015 19:33 Comments ||
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#5
Actually Sharpless wants a national Gestapo to peer in every window and listen to every phone call and destroy the loyal opposition.
First and last step to police state. If Sharpless was a true civil libertarian, he would never say this. He is a Marxist/Stalinist using race baiting to further a leftist totalitarian agenda.
Oh by the way, you guys at the IRS who seem to know what I am saying on the internet, go ahead and audit me again.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
05/04/2015 21:32 Comments ||
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Absolutely dreadful. Something most definitely must be done, and someone most definitely must do it.
[Dawn] PAKISTAN'S shortcomings when it comes to protecting religious minorities as well as followers of various Moslem sects are well known.
Yet when these inadequacies are amplified on the world stage the effect is more sobering. And as a recently released annual American report on religious freedom indicates, 2014 was hardly a year to remember for Pakistain on this count.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom report says that "Pakistain represents one of the worst situations in the world for religious freedom".
In fact, the report recommends that Pakistain be designated a "country of particular concern", which can trigger economic sanctions under American legislation.
The document says Shias, as well as Christians, Ahmadis and Hindus experienced violence in the country, while it also highlights the reported forced conversions of Hindu girls to Islam.
It is also critical of this country's blasphemy laws. It should be mentioned that the report is not Pakistain-specific and mentions other countries as well; for example it says that India, under BJP rule, has witnessed increasing acts of violence against that country's Christians and Moslems.
But the embarrassing prognosis of Pakistain's problem of religious violence should make the state take a long, hard look at what is wrong and how to fix it.
So far, the current year has also shown no signs that those who kill in the name of faith are a spent force; the Shikarpur and Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. imambargah bombings, as well as the Lahore church attacks, serve as deadly reminders of their potency. The major problem, as the report points out, is that hardly any of the perpetrators who commit acts of violence on religious grounds, as well as the individuals who incite and support them, have been brought to justice. In fact, over the last few weeks we have seen groups with overtly sectarian, violent agendas march in cities across Pakistain. With such groups still on the prowl, the argument that the establishment is taking action against religiously motivated murderers is seriously dented. The state must realise that unless it acts against religious zealots who practise and preach violence, not only will Pakistain continue to get a bad press internationally, but such violence will have a detrimental effect on communal and sectarian relations within the country. To show the world as well as its own citizens that it will not tolerate religious violence, the Pak state must permanently put jihadi and sectarian groups out of business.
#3
The only effective answer to people who believe that they've not just a right, but an obligation, to spreed their ideology through violence (and I don't care if the ideology is Islam or Democracy) is counter-violence.
#4
"The US Commission on International Religious Freedom report says that Pakistain represents one of the worst situations in the world for religious freedom."
I though that was the whole point of Pakistan existing. Silly me.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/04/2015 8:04 Comments ||
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[PJMedia] No one knows what exactly happened to the deceased Freddie Gray, except that it should not have happened. Between what is outlined in the indictments and what will be proven in court is an unknown abyss. But the more dramatic the short-term exuberance over the sweeping indictments, the more likely the long-term fury when the charges are likely to be substantially reduced or unproven in court.
Almost everyone blames the subsequent Baltimore rioting on some --ism -- endemic racism, economic inequality, the lack of jobs, the legacy of slavery, systematic police brutality and insensitivity, the pathologies of the black underclass, the destruction of the black family and on and on. However, most of America, rich and poor, black, white and other, liberal and conservative can more or less chart the conditions that explain a Ferguson or Baltimore -- and remain quiet about it. At this point, I don't think much will change until action follows rhetoric and someone like Barack Obama symbolically puts his kids in the public schools rather than at Sidwell Friends, or some of the loud MSNBC team choose to live, in desegregated style, in the Baltimore inner city, or Apple and Google grandees mentor East Palo Alto gangbangers, or an Al Gore recruits inner-city youth on his green staffs, or a Warren Buffett leads a national effort on the part of plutocrats to invest money in Detroit or Oakland shopping centers. And as long as the proverbial black community has self-appointed adjudicators of racial redress that blame pathologies on cosmic racism rather than demand introspection -- of the likes of the Revs. Al Sharpton [1], Jesse Jackson [2], and Jeremiah Wright [3], in a way quite unlike the Asian, Jewish, ethnic, and Latino communities -- things will not change much. Is there a Cuban or Chinese or Korean national reverend who takes it upon himself to agitate and negotiate collective grievances?
#3
hear much about "Clinton Cash" since Baltimore riots started?
Bill Clinton was interviewed briefly about that on my morning news station this a.m. He said, as I recall, that Hillary had no problem with foreigners giving him charitable donations, and that it had no impact on her job as Sec. of State, though as I was half asleep I may be misremembering.
He's the charmer everyone loves, so if he is getting involved...
#5
Slick Willie was asked about the money in the Clinton Foundation. He had really big balls in his answer, he said "Well, we had to pay the bills." Hubris defined. These two snake oil salesmen (Hilda and Slick) should be tarred and feathered and sent back to Arkansas (except the people back there don't have much use for them either.)
#6
With potential race riots on the horizon, no small coincidence the Clinton 2016 campaign logo is a warmed over Hospital sign... All the rioters will be wearing them this and next year.
Posted by: Ho Chi Trotsky9520 ||
05/04/2015 15:10 Comments ||
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h/t Instapundit
[AceOfSpades] These last few weeks for some reason have been politically very draining, and it's been harder and harder to think of subjects. We've seen instance after instance where the most egregious violations of American sovereignty and law have been trampled, times when our culture has been debased and our traditional values trampled. I know, it has ever been thus, but somehow it seems worse lately, and this week I figured out why:
Because nobody seems to care.
That's not true. I know that's not true, and so do you, but we're made to believe through the media that we're alone. We're not, and what it is time to do is push back, but we can't push back using our preferred methods. Most of us are here on the right because we value logic and reason over the raw emotionalism of the left. That means that we tend to want to construct long, detailed arguments to prove our points, and as a general rule in a fair debate we destroy the left on the merits of our argument. This reinforces our bias towards intellect over emotion, and we congratulate ourselves that we've proven our point. Now things will surely change!
Except they don't. Know why?
Nobody's listening.
Why is nobody listening? Well, first of all, our coldly logical arguments never get to them. The media cuts and edits and castigates to reinforce their relentlessly leftist point of view so that our arguments never get through. Secondly, many people don't care about well reasoned logical arguments. We live in an age of instant gratification. Like it or not, it's a Vine world out there. Finally, our side has been so demonized that many LIVs won't even bother to listen to what we're saying, dismissing us out of hand.
So what's the solution? The solution is "eff off".
We have to stop granting the left, and especially the activist left, the SJW types, the courtesy of treating them as if they are legitimate. We need to tell them to eff off. We need to stop debating and start dismissing. Most of what they are saying is so stupid and flimsy that it NEEDS the prop of our treating it seriously to lend it the mantle of legitimacy.
#1
Because nobody seems to care. Nobody does seem to care. The morality of the culture, rule of law, and public order have slipped a cog or two in the recent years. Maybe it's just me but it seems like that happens every Donk cycle of rule.
#2
Totally agree. I have becoming more and more depressed because "nobody seems to care".
I am going to try and follow my wife's suggestion and pretty much quit reading about all this $#it, it short I'm going Galt and telling the world to F*** Off.
Of course the "world" doesn't care what I say or do.
#3
One wonders how long before the intolerance of the Left no longer allows use to hold our beliefs or express them. Once that happens there seems little hope of a peaceful twilight for the Republic....
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
